Twilight was vaguely aware of exploding noises as the import stopped. She was in a tree - she could see Fluttershy standing on a nearby branch, a terrified look on her face. Twilight was barely able to process this - she had the worst headache of all time. If I didn't have a concussion before I do now... She groaned, standing up - barely able to stay in the tree. She looked around - there were a dozen or so smoking craters from mine explosions on the ground nearby. She saw Four precariously standing on one foot in one of them, shaking. He had suffered dozens of explosions - enough to ding his metallic exterior and upset his balance. Vriska was nowhere to be seen.
"What... What happened?"
"I FELL. THINGS EXPLODED. THINGS KEPT EXPLODING. VRISKA GOT YOU TO THAT TREE. I STABILIZED MYSELF LIKE THIS. SHE FLEW OFF IN A RAGE."
"Why?" Twilight asked.
A dog flew through the sky with a yelp, landing in a nearby tree. "Gotcha!" Vriska shouted, coming out of nowhere and grabbing the dog by the scruff. "You have-"
"Vriska! You can't!" Fluttershy yelled.
"Already did," Vriska grunted. "If it makes you feel better I won't kill him myself. Probably. Let his fellow dogs sort that out." She shook him rapidly. "You are going to get us through these mines, or ELSE."
The dog passed out.
Vriska sighed, tossing the dog back into the tree. "Okay, sporadic luck today. Yes, found the dog. No, couldn't interrogate him. Bah."
Twilight groaned. "They suggested I use a metal detection spell... Which would work, I just don't think we can move Four across easily. His feet are just too big. You got anything?"
"I'll need to absorb someone's luck to pull that off. And..." She looked at the dog. "Don't think he has enough to be worth it."
Fluttershy let out a sigh of relief. "Good..."
Vriska scratched her chin. "...Twilight, can you carry him in your magic again? You aren't due for another 'import' for a long time, right?"
"Right... I think I have a concussion now though. Got any way to heal that?"
"Sorry, no dice."
Twilight groaned. "Don't think I should be taxing my mind like this... Not sure I have a choice though. Vriska, grab me. Four, you ready again?"
"READY."
"Good. Okay..." She lit her horn - it felt like a nail drove through her skull. But she grunted through it, lifting Four off the ground once again. They moved over the minefield for two more minutes.
Two more agonizing minutes. They eventually found their way into the mountain-forest proper, and could see a small dog town up ahead.
"Far enough," Vriska said. Twilight dropped Four at this - he hit the ground hard, but nothing exploded. Vriska smirked. "Am I good or am I good?"
"...Good..." Twilight breathed heavily, rubbing her head. Vriska set her down on the ground. Fluttershy rushed to Twilight and examined her.
"Twilight... This isn't good. This isn't good at all. Try not to fall asleep, okay? We... We need to get you treated..."
"We don't know any advanced healing spells and I'm not spending several days in a hospital, Fluttershy. We have to keep moving."
"But..."
"I know it's bad. Probably really bad. But we still have to go, we're on a timer." She looked at the dog town. "We probably shouldn't go there..."
"We might find medicine though..." Fluttershy said.
"THEY WON'T LIKE PONIES. OR GOLEMS."
"Guess that leaves it to me then," Vriska said. "They'll have no idea what I am. And I can totally just steal the medicine, easy."
"I'll go with you. Invisible. I know that spell," Twilight said. "Plus I kinda... need it."
"Good." Vriska said. "Come on then, we need to move fast."
Twilight nodded, casting invisibility on herself. It hurt. "Fluttershy, Four, head towards the mountain. We'll catch up with you later."
"Twilight... Be careful."
"I will."
Vriska un-summoned her orange robes and started walking. Twilight trotted alongside her with the three legs that worked. "I'm going to talk to the Influence now."
"Fine by me. Can't wait to hear about the insanity this time."
Twilight nodded. "Gigniss, yes, my wings are broken. And I do plan to consult the Knowledge for anything on Orchid. Tarou - it wasn't funny, and it was unthoughtful, but I do accept your apology. And I..." She paused, thinking. "...I'm not... Afizah? That entire thing you said about Tarou seemed forced. In fact.... A lot of the things you've been saying seem forced. Out of place. I'm... I'm not sure I believe what's going on. You've... You've always been weird, out there, and I... I'm sorry I just can't take what you say at face value anymore. I'm even finding myself doubting if Tarou is a distinct person from you, or just another one of your crazy facets! I mean, I trust Josh way more than I trust what you say, and he said it was JUST 'Afizah and Ponygood.' What does that mean about Tarou, huh? Did you just dream him up to try to play off my sympathy? Was the other Twilight I was talking to really a look into another universe or just your random crazyness? I.... I just... Ah my head hurts..."
"Sounds like someone's trolling you," Vriska observed.
"...Maybe. Bah. I'm getting fed up with that one in particular... Been trying to ignore him, actually, since most of what he's said is non sequiter. It's just... Hard."
"Eh, can't really help you there. It seems like you have to listen to these idiots."
"I've often wondered if I'd do better on this quest without them..."
"Pfft, you wouldn't have me then!"
"True. You have been very helpful. I think your attitude, despite its brashness, was actually needed."
"Hell yeah!"
Twilight chuckled. "Yeah. Hell 'fucking' yeah."
"Yes, that's right, say it more! Release yourself!"
"I don't even know what the word means."
"That's probably best."
Twilight shot her a look. "...Now I'm concerned."
"Get back to your internal trollers."
"Right... All of you who are suggesting possible things to summon, I'm not even going to comment on that since trying to understand seems to be a mostly pointless exercise." She rubbed her head. "Agree together on an option. I'm currently set on summoning the Mite, and Aradia eventually to close the time loop. That leaves two - one of which will be a Pinkie. I'm leaning towards Evermore Pinkie. You all need to decide, together, collectively, on the last one. Or just vote for it when the time comes. I'm not putting my cents in unless I see something really worthwhile. Also part of me thinks you don't need to change your avatars, just tell me what you want. We'll decide through democracy."
"The mysterious powers of democracy..."
Twilight shot Vriska an odd look - not that she could see it, since Twilight was invisible. "Okay... Owleero, that... was confusing. But I don't think you need to try to explain it again, it doesn't seem important. And... DLB? I think that's you talking about Flash? ...You know, a few days ago that revelation would have sent me into shock. Now it's not all that unexpected. You people..." She shook her head. "Zen, you don't have to worry about being too long winded, you're fine. I don't think you've ever upset me. Akumakami... I... I actually don't know about Tartarus. I know there's a centaur-gargoyle kingdom called Tauryl somewhere in the world, I don't think they're immortal, but... I just don't know. And... Are you okay? Uh... Robocord? Hi? Did you do something to Akumakami?"
"The answer to that is probably yes," Vriksa added.
"Yeah..." Twilight furrowed her brow. "...Ponygood? I do consider these people my friends. Fluttereshy, Infinity, Four, Vriska - all of them."
"Awwww..." Vriska chuckled.
"Yeah, well Vriska, they have a lot of questions for you and about you."
"Hit me!"
"Ponygood talks about this Omniverse thing, and that there's another tower than the one you described, the Dark Tower..."
Vriska laughed. "Pretty sure that is the same one as the one I described. Yeah... Yeah I'm pretty sure I've heard 'the Dark Tower' in many places. Never been there myself - I hear it keeps most everyone away - but it sure as heck exists. And we are not in an ominiverse, far from it. True infinity can't exist. Even that 'infinite sided die' has a finite number of things it can do. It can just do every single possible thing in existence anywhere. So tell him to shove that idea up his ass."
"You just did." Twilight shivered. "There's apparently a lot of confusion about your powers. What exactly can you do?"
"One. I am awesome."
Twilight chuckled. "That's self-evident. What else?"
"Two. I can control the minds of the weak-willed. I've gotten pretty good at it over the years, but it's difficult if I don't have experience with the race. For instance - dogs. Can't do dogs. Not those kind of dogs anyway."
"Ah."
"Three. I have my magic eight-sided dice." In her free hand eight blue eight-sided dice appeared. "They work a lot like the infinite sided die, but have a limited number of outcomes and are purely offensive."
"Good. And..."
"Four. My luck manipulation. I can steal luck from any being that has it and add it to my own. Those I steal luck from are likely to be killed by sheer chance or stumble over everything around them. When I have extra luck I can control the results on my dice and get around death easily. If I get a lot of luck I can roll eight eights and totally ruin everything for whoever's unlucky enough to be facing me."
"Yep. Figures."
"Oh, also my vision eightfold can see into things that were not meant to be seen into, but that rarely means anything. Beyond that I can stab things and fly."
Twilight nodded. "I hope that cleared some things up. They're also confused about the types of powers in your world? Classes and aspects?"
"Nobody understands classes, don't even try," Vriska muttered. "I'm a Thief, I steal things for myself. I know that. Princes destroy their aspect. Bards destroy with their aspect, etc. But it's more nuanced than that. Bards also have an air of complete randomness about them that makes them the wildcard instead of the hulking brute you would think. Knights use their aspect as a weapon, though how varies extremely. And then there's the Rogue, who can 'steal and distribute' or some fucking nonsense like that. It's best not to think too hard about it."
"And the aspects?"
"That's easier to wrap your head around, and it's makes a lot more sense. There are twelve aspects - I'm Light, the aspect of knowledge and fortune. The opposing one is Void, the aspect of nothingness and the unseen. Not bad luck, for whatever reason. Then you have Time and Space - should be self-explanatory. Hope and Rage, or as I like to call them, Shiny McHalo and Secret McKilling."
"You don't really call them that."
"Nope! But it doesn't really matter? They deal with emotions - those of raw destruction and power, and those that look towards the bright future. You could almost think of it as optimism and pessimism. Moving on we have Breath and Blood. Breath has to do with wind, freedom, and aloofness while Blood almost exclusively deals with connections between people. I think. Never really saw a Blood player become in-tune with their aspect. After that, there's Heart and Mind. Mind is all about thinking and thoughts, while Heart is about the soul and sense of self."
"I sense there's two more."
"Life and Doom. Life players could heal your concussion problem. Doom players... Well, I never say a Doom player get realized and let's just say I think that's a good thing."
Twilight pondered what someone with the power of Doom would do. She shuddered. "I agree..."
"Any other questions?"
"Creek has a few. Do you know what happens when an author stops writing for you? ...I'm actually curious about this myself."
Vriska shrugged. "Pretty sure you just get to do whatever. Orange Fuctard ended his story and I got lost. I'm still lost. That's all that happened."
"And... I don't understand this one. Do you know about True Walkers? Creek says they can travel between worlds."
"...That is such a vague term Jegus if I haven't heard that seventy thousand times already... I think she's talking about people who can travel naturally under their own power across worlds. I've met a few, but they're a really varied group. No unifying relation at all. Then there are those who use technology to travel and blah de blah de blah it's just a mess..."
"How do you travel?"
Vriska smirked. "I get lucky."
"Oh. Honestly don't know why I was expecting another answer." Twilight frowned. "Hope that helps Creek. And... Yeah. I think I've decided on a name. People don't seem that interested in it anymore, so I guess I've got all the input I'm going to get."
"Oh? What is your new name?"
"Twilence," Twilence said, smirking to herself.
~~~
New name, new mare, as they said... somewhere. Twilence was sure they said that somewhere. Even though she had a concussion, she felt herself well up inside with determination. No longer would she be the naive, foolish, simple Twilight. She was Twilence, a mare who knew where she stood in all of reality, who had a quest - who understood that things were at stake and that stories played a role in reality that no one was fully aware of. She was going to leave her fear, her pensiveness, and her panic.
She walked into the dog town behind Vriska feeling like nothing could knock her down.
The town itself had fifty or so buildings, most of them formed out of bricks, though there were a few that were made out of natural-ish crystal structures that came in a rainbow of colors. Dogs bounded around - sometimes on all fours, sometimes on two legs. They were a varied bunch - some of them were smaller than a pony while others neared the height of a minotaur. A few got around by digging, but that was mostly unnecessary here, with the exception of the mine entrance Twilence could see in the distance.
Several of the dogs looked up at Vriska in confusion when she walked in like she owned the place. "Hello there!"
The dogs blinked and looked at each other in confusion. "How can you speak dog?" One asked.
"Got hit with a translator spell LONG time ago. So long I can't remember who did it or if I had any say in the matter." She shrugged. "So, whatever, hi. I'm Vriska Serket. I'm a traveler in need of some aid and possibly healing potions."
A velvet-furred feminine dog walked up and sat on her haunches, glaring at Vriska. "It'll cost you."
"I'm sure I can pay." She took out an 8-ball from her pocket and juggled it up and down. "Show me your wares first."
"You have the eyes of a thief."
"How could you tell?" Vriska laughed. "But seriously I could really use some potions. How am I possibly going to steal from you? You all outnumber me and will be watching my every move."
"...True."
Vriska stuck out her non-broken arm. "Shake on it?"
The velvet-dog nodded. "I am Irana. Our wares are over here-"
A loud noise could suddenly be heard overhead. The dogs, Twilence, and Vriska all looked up to see a small fleet of Fosis ships pass overhead.
"Damnit," Vriska muttered.
A burst of yellow energy engulfed the ships and vaporized them in an instant.
Vriska blinked. "...Damn."
Twilence blinked. What the heck was that!?
Vriska turned to Irana. "Uh..."
"Heildor protects," was all she said in response to this. "Come."
Vriska nodded and followed. Twilence moved to follow as well - but then felt the eye start to burn in her chest.
...She made sure the invisibillity spell would last without her continually casting it. She sat down, hoping Vriska could handle herself and that nobody would bump into her.